Each candidate behaved well in the hope of being judged worthy of election. However, this system was disastrous when the city had become corrupt. For then it was not the most virtuous but the most powerful who stood for election, and the weak, even if virtuous, were too frightened to run for office. ~Niccolo Machiavelli (Italian writer and statesman; Florentine patriot, author of ‘The Prince’)

An election cannot give a country a firm sense of direction if it has two or more national parties which merely have different names but are as alike in their principles and aims as two peas in the same pod. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt (American 32nd US President,1933-45, cousin of Theodore Roosevelt, 26th US president,1882-1945)

If the United States of America or Britain is having elections, they don’t ask for observers from Africa or from Asia. But when we have elections, they want observers. ~Nelson Mandela (South African Statesman; First democratically elected State President of South Africa (1994), 1993 Nobel Prize for Peace, b.1918)

Elections are won by men and women chiefly because most people vote against somebody rather than for somebody. ~ Franklin Pierce Adams (American Journalist, Columnist and Translator, (1881-1960)

"War is a scandal to be mourned every day. We see war in the newspapers ever and we're used to reading about it: the number of its victims is just part of our daily accounts. We hold events to commemorate the centenary of the Great War and everyone is scandalized by the many millions of dead. But today it's the same... instead of one great war, there are small wars everywhere. When we were children in Sunday School and we were told the story of Cain and Abel, we couldn't accept that someone would kill their own brother. And yet today millions kill their own brothers and we're used to it: there are entire peoples divided, killing each other over a piece of land, a racial hatred, an ambition.

Think of the children starving in refugee camps... these are the fruits of war. And then think of the great dining rooms, of the parties held by those who control the arms industry, who produce weapons. Compare a sick, starving child in a refugee camp with the big parties, the good life led by the masters of the arms trade. And remember, that the wars, the hatred, the hostility aren't products we buy at the market: they're right here, in our hearts. The Apostle James gives us a simple piece of advice: 'Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.' But the spirit of war, which draws us away from God, doesn't just reside in distant parts of the world: the spirit of war comes from our own hearts."

- Homily given by Pope Francis at the Casa San Marta on February 25, 2014